The tide is higher than you thought

At at a scant 7 feet above sea level on average, with global warming’s rising tides, the Pacific’s Marshall Islands are, in a word, screwed. But King County leader Ron Sims is meeting this morning with Marshall Islands’ President Kessai Note to pledge whatever support, advice and sandbags he can muster.

A study this month in the journal Science predicted that thanks to global warming, sea levels will rise between 20 to 55 inches by 2100. Yes, that’s possibly more than 4.5 feet by the end of the century.

But sea level forecasts coming next week from U.N. coalition of scientists are expected to dramatically low-ball that figure. Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein is reporting today that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report predicts a rise of between 5 and 23 inches.

From the AP’s Borenstein:

Many top U.S. scientists reject these rosier numbers. Those calculations don’t include the recent, and dramatic, melt-off of big ice sheets in two crucial locations:

They “don’t take into account the gorillas – Greenland and Antarctica,” said Ohio State University earth sciences professor Lonnie Thompson, a polar ice specialist. “I think there are unpleasant surprises as we move into the 21st century.”

Michael MacCracken, who until 2001 coordinated the official U.S. government reviews of the international climate report on global warming, has fired off a letter of protest over the omission.

So back to the 1,200 islands and islets, home to about 60,000 residents, that are the Marshalls. This from Sims’ office:

Global warming is expected to raise sea levels and increase the frequency and intensity of the tropical storms that batter the islands. If not checked, climate change impacts could become so severe that the islands will have to be evacuated. To help avoid that fate, Executive Sims will pledge today to deploy the county’s nationally-recognized experts of climate change adaptation strategies to assist the Marshallese in dealing with the climate threat.

So the Marshalls might be islands in peril of obsolecence, but at least they don’t stand alone.

UPDATE

Here’s a photo from the meeting of Sims and Note, and a comment from Note via a press release:

Note signs an agreement as Sims looks on

Since my election more than five years ago, I have been traveling the world trying to draw attention to the threat that my people face. We are going to be the world’s first environmental refugees if the world does not act, so I am very happy today to see that Executive Sims and the people of this region are willing to offer the hand of friendship and cooperation.